Friday, October 10, 2008

I decluttered my supply closet back on day 12 of the August Declutter Challenge, so it's been a while since I've paid attention to it. Lately, I've been getting more stuff than I have room for. A lot of these excess products end up going to the USO, but there are a lot of products that I would like to keep too. I was also having difficulty finding stuff, which is never a good sign. Time to declutter!

Before

After

I know it doesn't look like much, so you'll just have to take my word for it =P. Basically I can now fit probably double of what I could before. And everything's also a lot easier to find and get to - thanks to some recycled USPS boxes. They fit perfectly width AND height-wise in this closet, so I've been able to use them as containers for most of our stuff.

Since this is the supply closet, I wasn't too worried about accessibility, so I stacked a couple of boxes on top of each other. The "baby" box is on top of the "toothpaste" box, and then "air fresheners" box is on top of the "candles" box. Just this simple stacking created a whole bunch of room in the closet, and I managed to create better categories for everything. Instead of lumping all things mommy into one "mommy box", mommy now has a deodorant box, a hair products box, and a beauty box (perfumes and makeup). Baby also gets a box too, because her things used to be spread out over the "lotions" box, the "shampoo" box, and the "body-wash" box. I don't know about you, but diaper rash doesn't exactly fit my lotioning needs.

I just want to stress that decluttering the supply closet was not about fitting more junk in it, but rather being able to find things easier. I am always getting shampoo and toothpaste for "free", and it is completely unreasonable for me to even attempt to hold onto everything that I buy. I know we don't need any, but I get them anyway because I know there are people who could use them. The "selfish" thing that I do is weed out the products that we're not a major fan of, or have no preference towards, and donate those instead. For example, I love Garnier, so I kept all of that but donated all the Pert Plus.

I'm sorry. I'm a bad person. At least I decluttered this week. Surely that means I won't be heading straight to hell for hoarding shampoo, right?